Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/103

.] people for its support, without the interposition of the state legislatures. I have no confidence in the legislature: the people do not suppose them to be honest men.

Mr. STEELE was decidedly in favor of the clause. A government without revenue he compared to a poor, forlorn, dependent individual, and said that the one would be as helpless and contemptible as the other. He wished the government of the Union to be on a respectable footing. Congress, he said, showed no disposition to tax us—that it was well known that a poll tax of eighteen pence per poll, and six pence per hundred acres of land, was appropriated and offered by the legislature to Congress—that Congress was solicited to send the officers to collect those taxes, but they refused—that if this power was not given to Congress, the people must be oppressed, especially in time of war—that, during the last war, provisions, horses, &c., had been taken from the people by force, to supply the wants of government—that a respectable government would not be under the necessity of recurring to such unwarrantable means—that such a method was unequal and oppressive to the last degree. The citizens, whose property was pressed from them, paid all the taxes; the rest escaped. The press-masters went often to the poorest, and not to the richest citizens, and took their horses, &c. This disabled them from making a crop the next year. It would be better, he said, to lay the public burdens equally upon the people. Without this power, the other powers of Congress would be nugatory. He added, that it would, in his opinion, give strength and respectability to the United States in time of war, would promote industry and frugality, and would enable the government to protect and extend commerce, and consequently increase the riches and population of the country.

Mr. JOSEPH M'DOWALL. Mr. Chairman, this is a power that I will never agree to give up from the hands of the people of this country. We know that the amount of the imposts will be trifling, and that the expenses of this government will be very great; consequently the taxes will be very high. The tax-gatherers will be sent, and our property will be wrested out of our hands. The Senate is most dangerously constructed. Our only security is the House of Representatives. They may be continued at Congress